NEW YORK, Dec. 29, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The regulatory settlements that forced UBS Securities to offer to repurchase all Auction Rate Securities ("ARS") that the firm had improperly sold to investors, prior to the collapse of the ARS market in February of 2008, expired at the close of business on December 19, 2008.
Maddox Hargett & Caruso, P.C. and Co-Counsel recommend that investors who did not participate in the ARS repurchase program consider the pursuit of their legal options against UBS Securities.
"Investors should be aware of the fact that their ability to force UBS to repurchase the auction rate securities that had been improperly sold to them has now expired," said attorney Steven B. Caruso of Maddox Hargett & Caruso, P.C. in New York City. "With the expiration of this repurchase offer, investors are left with the option of either continuing to be trapped in these illiquid securities until their maturity dates or considering the initiation of an arbitration claim to recover access to their funds.
"As a result of the evidence that was uncovered in the various regulatory investigations involving UBS Securities this past summer, it is clear that investors were misled into believing that ARS were a cash equivalent, the liquidity risks associated with these securities were concealed from them, and that UBS engaged in a concerted campaign to dump these securities on investors so that the firm wouldn't be left holding the bag when the ARS markets were abandoned by UBS this past February," said attorney Philip M. Aidikoff of Aidikoff, Uhl & Bakhtiari in Beverly Hills, California.
The UBS brokers who sold ARS are not targets of the investigation, according to the investors' legal team (www.subprimelosses.com) which includes the firms of Aidikoff, Uhl & Bakhtiari, of Beverly Hills, Calif.; Maddox, Hargett & Caruso, P.C., of Indianapolis, Ind. and New York, N.Y.; Page Perry, LLC, of Atlanta, Ga.; and David P. Meyer & Associates Co., L.P.A., of Columbus, Ohio.
More information is available at www.subprimelosses.com or by contacting an attorney.